Holland named most secure mid-sized city in U.S.

The Holland-Grand Haven area is the most secure mid-size city in America, according to a recent study by Farmers Insurance.

Lisa Ermak

The Holland-Grand Haven area is the most secure mid-size city in America, according to a recent study by Farmers Insurance.

Quality-of-life expert and researcher Bert Sperling conducted the study and looked at a number of factors, including economic stability, crime statistics, extreme weather, housing depreciation and employment rates to determine the top 20 list of secure cities, which were broken down by population size.

Holland-Grand Haven landed on the top of the list for mid-size cities followed by Green Bay, Wis.

Keith VanBeek, assistant Ottawa County administrator, said the county works toward having solid services and a fantastic community that is a place people want to live.

"It's outside recognition that we have a fantastic community," he said. "It's one of those outside indicators" that what the county is doing is working.

Stacy Segrist Kamphuis, owner of Holland-based The Insurance Group LLC, wasn’t surprised Holland made the top spot, noting the lakeshore has a low crime rate and very few natural disasters.

"Our worst-case scenario is a snow storm, and that’s just an inconvenience. It’s not going to cause damage," she said. "We don’t have hurricanes, we don’t have earthquakes. We don’t have anything like that."

Ann Arbor was the only other mid-size Michigan city to make the top 20 list. However, the Grand Rapids–Wyoming area took the No. 2 spot on the list of the most secure large metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.

"Our most secure metropolitan areas are islands of security in our challenging times," Sperling said in a news release. "Although each metropolitan area is different, they all possess a desirable combination of factors (jobs, low crime rates, housing, climate, health, reduced levels of natural disasters) that make these some of the best places to live in the United States."